The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1887-09-17
TOADS AND THEIR PREY.
Peculiar Provisions of Nature by Which
They Can Eat Insects.

Iney Gan Eat Insects.
recently spent five or six hours on
a steamboat in company with a
stranger from Brookvile-a modest,
Fintelligent man, full twenty years my
junior. just as we were nearing the
city Of Bangor the remark of third
party led me to say that the most curl
Gus thing he had ever seen in his life
was on occasion of his splitting huge
bOwlder in field that he might use
the pieces for stone wall, and finding
in the center of it Il great fat toad. If
his report was true it would seem that
| the toad must have crawled in or fallen
into the fissure in the first year of his
life, and have found in there sufficient
supply of insects, either crawling in or
fallen in, to sustain his life for four or
five years.
presume you are all aware of the
peculiar manner in which the toads
seizes his prey. The root of his tongue
is fastened in the very front of his up
per jaw, while the tip lies far down his
throat. It thus lies directly over his
windpipe, and he would not be able to
breathe were not his tongue perforated
in the middle, exactly in the right
place, so that it can act opening or
contracting, somewhat in the manner
of the CLOTHS. When he sees any NOV
ing thing which he judges to be an in
Sect he throws the tip of his tongue
out with great accuracy of aim, picks
the insect up, and thrusts it down his
throat with the rapidity of lightning.
Lay down an apple core or little piece
OF single smeared with molasses near
a toad and you must watch very sharply
to see how it is that he so rapidly
transfers every fly that settles on your
bait to his own stomach.
The accuracy of aim in the young
toad is similar to the accuracy with
which the young quail or chicken picks
up grain. A young chicken, having
only its head out of the shell, picked
up u fly that lighted near it. And,
said Mr.. Calthrop, when you consider
the nice cooperation of nervous and
muscular movements necessary to this
feat, you will preceive that the chicken
must have been practicing fly-catchin9
in the person of its ancestry for thou
sands or millions of years. But l once
had curious proof that the toad is capaJ
bic Of improvement by practice. Under
a beehive in q garden at Cambridge l
observed for several successive sum-
mers toad watching for overloaded
bees who failed to reach the threshold
of the hive. No sooner did they fall on
the ground than he snapped them up.
But one day saw he had lost by some
accident his right eye, and when he
struck at bee he lost his aim, and
picked up dirt from one side of the
bee. He wiped his mouth with his fore
paw and tried again and again. The
bee generally managed to climb to the
top of some little prominence on the
ground and fly away before the toad
succeeded. The poor fellow was hall
starved and grew thin but | observed
that before the summer was ended he
had learned to aim as correctly with
one eye as he used to with two, and had
again recovered his plumpness.
The toad tongue usually puts things
down his throat so nicely that he does
not need much power of swallowing,
but he occasionally needs it and is
forced to make up by mother wit what
is lacking in the powers of his throat.
You will observe this most frequently
in his attempt to take II grass-hopper
or locust A toad will frequently at
tack an object that is really too large
for him to get into his mouth at all.
Thus have seen one attempt huge
caterpillar of a sphinx, and | have
known of one undertaking a wounded
humming bird. In this case it was q
perfect failure. But when II toad has
transferred the head of large locust
to his stomach, and finds the hind legs
and tail still protruding from his mouth,
he usually turns to the nearest stone or
fence and pushes the grass-hopper' S
legs against the obstacle until he has
rammed it into his mouth. 1t would
seem from this that his stomach is
capable of considerable mechanical eX-
tension without giving pain. And
were his stomach not somewhat insensi-
BILE, he would neither be capable of en-.
during the long fasts to which he must
sometimes submit nor of indulging
with impunity in the feasting and over
eating which we sometimes observe in
him. Boston Globe.
| -
"A driver of truck discovered that
some boys were riding with him. Two
Of them were extravagantly dressed.
He allowed the ill-clad boys to remain.
but ordered the well-dressed ones off,
with the remark: "Yez kin afford tel
pay strate-car fare"
"A certain farmer sticks clothes pins
through board, nails up the board and
hangs his whips in the pins. Saves
money and whips.